SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. — U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins, R-W.Va., participated in a roundtable Monday regarding addressing neonatal abstinence syndrome.
Jenkins, who is also running for U.S. Senate, talked to doctors, nurses and administrators at Thomas Memorial Hospital in South Charleston about what babies experience after being exposed to drugs while in the womb. Those drugs include opioids as well as heroin.
Jenkins said the drug crisis is one of the most challenging issues he faces as a lawmaker.
“There are so many facets,” he said. “There’s addiction treatment and long-term assistance, but there are also newborn infants that have to go through withdrawal in their first days and weeks of life.”
Jenkins has made addressing NAS a major goal of his while in public office; as a legislator in the West Virginia Senate, he became aware of the issue after a conversation with two neonatal intensive care unit nurses in Huntington. He was one of the actors involved in the October 2014 opening of Lily’s Place, the United States’ first NAS center.
“It took about three years because of the regulatory burdens and the red tape and the challenges of fitting a square peg into a round hole,” he said. “It was a new idea, and in a very regulated environment like health care, getting square pegs in round holes don’t work very well.”
Jenkins pushed for laws at the state and federal level to streamline the opportunities to create facilities similar to Lily’s Place. He was the sponsor of the Nurturing and Supporting Healthy Babies Act during the 114th Congress, which was passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama. The law requires the Government Accountability Office to report on NAS, related treatment services and any limits to services caused by state Medicaid programs.
The law also included $581 million for funding opioid and heroin addiction treatment.
The congressman said discussions like the one that took place Monday allow him to better understand what health care professionals face every day.
“(It) gives me the opportunity to hear best practices, what’s really going on, what are the barriers to access to care, to treatment and to long-term recovery,” he said.
“Sometimes these barriers are regulatory barriers. Sometimes the barriers are funding, making sure we give the financial support. Maybe it’s a barrier we talked about of a local fire department that has seen their budget go up because they’re having to pay for the Narcan to administer.”
According to Thomas Health System representative, the network has multiple efforts in place regarding addiction, including family education opportunities.
Dialogue at the roundtable also included a discussion on assuring drug companies are not taking advantage of patients and limitations on health care access.